Re: [Http-webtest-general] help

[Johannes la P. <joe...@us...>]

On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Jagannadh Pariti wrote:
 
 >
 > Hello. I was wondering if there was any way to simulate the "Back"
 > button on the browser using WebTest?
 > Any advice would be helpful.

Jag,

There seems to be some misunderstanding about what http-webtest can test 
and what it can not. The sole purpose of this test framework is to 
monitor the behaviour of http webservers and applications that are 
accessible throug http (like PHP, CGI, Servlets and such). Hence the 
name "HTTP-WebTest".

Now what you are looking for has more to do with http client behaviour 
(the web browser).

What happens when a user clicks the "back button"?
This largely depends on:
1. caching headers sent with the original http document (the web page)
2. browser settings (Always compare with server /sometimes /never compare).
3. intermediate proxy behaviour (inspection of query and headers)

The first item *can* be tested by HTTP-WebTest (you have to look for 
specific headers like last modified timestamp and caching headers), 
other items are of course beyond the purpose of the framework.

However, as you can even construct the headers which WebTest sends with 
the page request, you could as well generate a "if-modified-since: 
<timestamp>" header on the fly and see what happens.

The conclusion has to be that you can accurately monitor what the web 
document the server is returning to you depending on lots of conditions, 
but you can not mimic the behaviour of user agents AKA "browsers".

HTH!

Cheers,

Joe.